Help:How to use redirect pages

How to create a redirect page
If you want to redirect traffic going to one page to another page (with a better title, for example), then use the command at the top of the page. See Richard Berman for an example.
 * 1) REDIRECT pagename

IMPORTANT - a redirect will not work if there is any text on the page besides the redirect command.


 * 1) REDIRECT Rick Berman_

will not work. Watch out for trailing spaces and lines when you create the redirect.

Why to create a redirect page

 * So that links to common synonyms and expansions of unique acronyms will all end up at the same place, such as ACSH and American Council on Science and Health
 * Redirecting to one article after consolidating two closely related articles. If you do this, you should do a little cleaning up by checking the links to the redirected article and making them go straight to the article that is the target of the redirection.

Why not to create a redirect page
If you simply want to rename an article to a new title, please don't just paste it under the new name and make a redirect. This breaks the history of previous edits, and if there's a talk page it won't get moved automatically. Instead, use the Move page function, which keeps these things intact and makes a redirect for you.

How to edit a redirect page
When you click on a link to a redirect page, you will be redirected automatically to the new page. But what if you want to edit the redirect page, for example, to redirect it somewhere else? To do this, click on the " " link at the top of the new page.

Points to bear in mind
Follow the "principle of least astonishment": make it clear to the reader that they have arrived in the right place. Otherwise, the reader will think "hang on ... I wanted to read about this. Why has the link taken me to that?" Note that in many cases, a redirect is a temporary measure: For example, John Doyle currently redirects to Berman & Co., but someone may want to eventually create a separate article about John Doyle at some point; in this case, see "how to edit a redirect page" above.

Don't create "loop links": don't link alternative names of an article on the article page itself. So, if "Industry-funded organizations" is a redirect to "Industry-sponsored organizations", don't do this on Industry-sponsored organizations:
 * Industry-sponsored organizations (or Industry-funded organizations) ...

Seeing the above makes the reader think that clicking on the "Industry-funded organizations" link leads to more information -- but it doesn't, it leads right back to the very same page!

Multiple links: Don't link several terms that all go to the same place:
 * Think tanks and other Industry-sponsored organizations or Industry-funded organizations ...

Doing the above makes the reader click two links, only to find that she has loaded the same page twice!

See also:

 * How to edit a page
 * How to rename a page
 * Practice editing pages in our SourceWatch sandbox!

Acknowledgement: the content of many of the help pages in SourceWatch have been adapted from Wikipedia.